


Definitely Not Trapped

by KimliPan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fanart, Ficlet, FrostIron - Freeform, Jotun Loki, M/M, Medieval AU, letsdrawfrostiron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 09:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KimliPan/pseuds/KimliPan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki is a lone frost giant sorcerer with a reward for his capture issued by the King, and Tony is a cocky, over-confident knight who chases him into a cold, dark cave.  Loki does not take kindly to attempts on his life.  Cue a bit of magic, danger, and sexual tension.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Definitely Not Trapped

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beta reader [chaperoned](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chaperoned/pseuds/chaperoned) who more doubled the time I thought it would to get this up and made me take pains to be perfect.
> 
> This is written for [letsdrawfrostiron](http://letsdrawfrostiron.tumblr.com/)'s "historical AU" challenge and goes with [maverrix](http://maverrix.tumblr.com/)'s art submission.
> 
> There are references and allusions to The Odyssey and other mythologies within! Especially The Odyssey.

“Looking for me?” the giant asked.

 _Looking for_ was a loaded phrase.  He wasn’t _looking for_ the giant, he was chasing him down, following stolen glimpses of blue skin and red eyes, horned shadows on the jagged cave walls, and soft pattering of naked toes on cold stone.  The chase had gone on for hours, and Tony allowed himself to be lured deeper and deeper into the cavern tunnels until what felt like dawn, if Tony were to guess.

There were times when Tony heard him ten paces ahead, barefoot and soft against the damp, icy cave floor.  By the time he made it to where the sound came from, though, there were nothing but frozen, glowing stalagmites.  After a time, there was nothing.  This was his first time seeing him up close.

He wouldn’t necessarily use the words ‘trapped’ or ‘lost’ to describe his whereabouts, but, technically speaking, he knew neither where he was nor how to get out.  Though getting out was only important once he got his bounty. As for his whereabouts, well, that kept changing anyway as he rode on the tail of the chase, which was feeling oddly like getting jerked around on a chain bound at the wrists.

Standing there now with his back against the wall, Tony hadn’t heard the beast coming.  He rested with his head bowed and his eyes closed, listening for any sign of the beast.  He didn’t even know he was near till he felt a cold breeze on his face round his mouth and nose.  Slowly, he opened his eyes to see the frost giant’s face, big, only inches away.  There was a low light emanating from much of the ice (dull blue, pulsing, magic) which made the frost giant’s face starkly midnight against the pale glow.  His tremendous, expansive red eyes gazed down at Tony, inhuman from the lack of white.  The giant grinned at him, his teeth like moonstone against a clear sky, and Tony, cornered against the wall, saw little else.  The giant’s hands rested on the stone wall behind him, his face within inches of Tony’s.  He narrowed his eyes out of instinct, but the moment his hostility presented itself, the giant’s grin expanded. 

Tony, too, grew a bit of a smirk, though he kept his grip on his sword strong.  He wanted to take the chance to look at him, take him in -- the giant was tall and Tony had to look up to meet his eyes.  He didn’t look down, though, or even straight on to avoid giving the giant an edge.

“Shocking, but no,” he lied.  More specifically, he was here for glory and a King’s reward.  “Shelter from the storm, more like.”

Many of the other men turned the quest down to slay the giant on the mountain, and those who didn’t outright reject the mission from fear (or what _some_ considered intelligence) simply didn’t believe the rumors true.  There was no giant on the mountain, and even if frost giants _were_ real, one living on his own certainly couldn’t survive.

To Tony, that sounded like a satisfying challenge.

“ _Charming_ ,” said the giant, and he pushed off the wall, turned his back on Tony -- actually _turned around_ , exposed his back, showed Tony his _vulnerable_ side -- and began to walk away.  Tony didn’t know if he should feel insulted or if he should edge forward and take the chance.  Instead, he allowed his smirk to spread wider. 

“You come to hunt me down, and you don’t even have the forthrightness to admit it.”  The giant leaned back against a cave wall facing Tony again and crossed his arms over his chest, frowning at Tony with no insignificant amount of reproach.

“Yeah, well.”  Tony rocked his head side to side as he afforded the giant a mocking smile.  His forthrightness was not something people usually doubted.  “Not exactly delicate smalltalk.”  He pointed his sword at the man against the wall.  “What’ll it be ~~,~~ then, Grendel?”  The monster sneered.  “Your call.  Drag this out, or surrender easy?”

“I don’t think so,” he crooned. He raised a hand and sliced it through the air.  A layer of ice grew around Tony’s sword, quickly encasing it, making it grow heavy and dull.  Tony tried to keep it up, but the sword’s point wilted and it hit the rock bottom with a dull _clank_ while he clung to the hilt, determined not to let go.  The giant walked toward him, his hands folded behind his back now while he took each step with a slow, measured cadence.  “What’s your name?” he asked.  Tony frowned and stood upright when the weight of his sword was too much.  “So that I may send for your ransom.”

To challenge him so _openly_ \-- Tony took this as a dare.  The giant was _daring_ him to play.  He clutched tightly at the hilt, his thumb pushing into the leather wrappings that he should have replaced before he left, and took a step forward, claiming his territory.  Unfazed, the monster closed the space between them by leveling his feet only inches from Tony’s. The nobleman squared his jaw and pushed it forward while the giant only smirked, his lids lowered in a sort of lazy contentment while his red eyes locked with Tony’s, full of as much confidence as Stark ever had.

 

 

([by maverrix](http://maverrix.tumblr.com/post/55924771855/my-entry-for-letsdrawfrostirons-historical-au))

 

“If you won’t tell me, then I suppose I could just kill you,” the giant offered, and Tony was about to reply when the giant revealed a blade he was holding behind his back by pressing it hard against Tony’s throat, hard enough to break the skin.  “It would be such a waste, wouldn’t it?” he asked while the other hand reached up to grab a fitsful of Tony’s hair.

Tony laughed.  The beast may have weighed down his sword, but he was quick and clever, and he thought himself to be much more than a simple flick of a wrist and a fast fall.

Dropping the sword, he brought both armored hands up to push the blade away and swung his elbow round to strike the giant -- not in the face where he couldn’t reach, but down against his collarbone, and to little effect.  The giant leaned in with his shoulder, using the golden-green armor there to protect against the blow.

He bore a hand down against Tony's chest.  It forced him off his balance, and he spent the moment regaining it while the giant twisted around him, wrapping an arm round his exposed neck which bled ever so slightly.  They stood together in the center of the room, Tony’s metal gauntlets clutching the arm that squeezed round his throat and threatened to suffocate him, and Tony thought to himself in this moment that if there was a time to admit when he made a mistake, then this still wasn’t one of them.

"Ransom and death aren’t the only things..." the giant whispered in his ear, pushing his nose into Tony's hair; he thrust his elbow back against the giant's abdomen, though he missed and hit his hip instead.

When the giant disappeared leaving Tony coughing for air in the middle of the room, it was easy to lie to himself: He still had a lead.  The giant had run away and he was still standing, ice-covered sword or no.  That’s what he told himself.  He picked it back up, dusted himself off and regained his composure before he started walking the icy depths again, recovering his pride the way a ruffled cat might.

 

* * *

 

"Still looking?"  Tony whirled around.  No one.  He let a huff out through his nose, heavy and irritated and cold, and shrugged at the empty cavern.  Hours passed since their last run-in; from what he could gauge, it felt like mid-day now.  His eyes had adjusted by now to the pale pulsing of light from the ice and he could see far enough to know that he was well and truly alone.

“Tony," he said casually, a hand slipping over to the hilt of his sword.  "Just a Stark, no big deal."  He heard the giant chuckle. "And you there, Polyphemus?"

"Loki," said the voice.  Loki.  Tony frowned.

"Well, you're not a very hospitable giant," he remarked, thinking on the adventures of Odysseus and his run-in with a cyclops in a cave.  "Least you could do is offer me some mead.  Share a drink.  A place to rest.  Shelter from the storm, as I said."

Loki laughed.  "Oh, this is a story I've heard before," he teased.  Tony felt himself pleased by the response.  Those who could match his strength had an absence of wit, and those who could match the speed of his mind could hardly match his strength.  "I suppose that makes you Nobody, doesn’t it?  As you suggest, _no big deal_."  This Loki seemed to manage both, while challenging him all the same.  It was an energy he had never known before.

“Well, Nobody’s got an ice sword, not an iron poker, so we’re in for a different kind of fight, I think,” Tony said evenly, taking a step backwards to keep an eye on more of the open space.  “Why don’t you come out and chit chat, yeah?”

A chuckle.  It came from directly behind him, echoed in his ears, and when he turned around, no one was there.

“What’s wrong, Stark?”

Tony pointed his sword where the voice came from, but still no one was there.  He took a step forward this time, and as he did, a stalactite from up high cracked and came crashing down from the ceiling, missing him mostly save its bulky side striking him in the shoulder.  He dropped his sword and reached up to hold it while he fell to one knee, his jaw clenched in pain.  He looked round the cavern, but still no one was there.

“Oh, are you hurt?” the giant asked.

Tony forced neutrality.  “Just a little sore,” he said stiffly as he let a breath out.  “Nothing a little golden juice couldn’t fix.”  He let his body relaxed and reach for his sword.  As he did so, he heard the slow cracking of stone above him as another stalactite threatened to fall; he grabbed the sword and rolled out of its path as it came crashing down, this time missing him entirely.  In the aftermath, he saw a tall, horned shadow in the dust.

“I don’t have to miss,” he said coolly while Tony used his sword to lift himself up.

Maybe this was a mistake.  _Maybe._ No one could say yet.  He lunged with his sword for Loki, but the shadow disappeared and the air in the room was still again, leaving him, his frosty sword and his throbbing shoulder alone with the two mounds of rock and no proof of his edge over Loki anymore.  And that’s where Tony was -- not trapped or lost, just misplaced and temporarily in need of liberation.

 

* * *

 

Tony was tired.  Exhausted, really.  It had been almost a full day -- he suspected it was almost nightfall -- and all he’d managed to do was tease a shadow and realize Loki’s strength.  He decided to take a break from the labyrinth of the cave and take a seat on a particularly jagged piece of rock that held him and his armor.  By now his cape, torn and dirty, was already soaked through; he pulled it out to let it hang behind him while he sat and called out,

“Hey!  Prometheus!”

Nothing.

He pat his hands against his armored knees and drummed his fingers in bored impatience.

“Come on, like I don’t know you’re watching me.  Come out.  Just wanna talk.  Call a truce.”

Nothing.

“Really, I never wanted to fight.  Let’s be real here, that was all you.”

“Interesting perspective.”  Tony gave the tiniest smirk, just a tug at the corner of his mouth.  The lilt of Loki’s voice was already familiar -- he found that he liked it.

“The people in the citadel, they’re curious about you, you know.”  In a manner of speaking, Tony wasn’t technically lying.  “They’ve never seen a frost giant.”

“Mm.”  The sound was disproving.  Perhaps it was a sore point.  Tony had to recover.

“You’re a bit of a curiosity.  I’m supposed to be some kind of... emissary.”  He looked round the room, groping for words.  “Not very good with people, though.”

“Indeed.” 

“Yeah, you noticed that, huh?”

“Please tell me you’re going to appeal to my humanity.”

Tony shrugged and raised a brow.  “Uh... more or less,” he offered, though he was no more convinced than he was convincing.  “You see, the ones who want you dead are afraid of you.  Who can blame them.”  Blatant flattery.  Tony wasn’t even really trying to hide it.

“And?”

“This is a chance for alliances.”

“I see.”  The horned blue figure stepped out from a dark corner.  “You’re suggesting I return with you to this pathetic _citadel._ ”

“Yes?”  Tony pushed himself standing and approached Loki, his stride calm, confident, though he wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  He kept his hand away from his sword, not wanting to give a wrong impression.  “Sure, why not.”

Loki hesitated in his response, his red eyes roving over Tony’s figure, from top to bottom, lips pressed tight in a wide smile that seemed more like enjoyment than smugness.  In turn, it made Tony’s eyebrows raise in something akin to expectation, maybe even hope.

“Alright.”

Tony’s brows raised higher.  Maybe he hadn’t had so much hope as to expect Loki to give himself up.  “You’re serious?” he asked; there was no way Loki actually bought his bullshit.  “You’ll come back with me?”

“I’ve had enough hunting for my own food,” he said boredly, his hands steady at his sides, showing no sign of impatience or discomfort.  “Perhaps this citadel will work out for me.”

“Alright, then,” Tony agreed, and though he didn’t quite trust Loki’s compliance, neither did he want to look this prize horse in its toothy, biting mouth, especially not when this horse was his way out.

Loki took the lead. He didn’t chat too much, but Tony carried on (“so you got some cold breath there, Boreas,” “how do you kill time in a cold, dark cave?” “the scant armor’s a nice look, I like it”) whether or not he responded.  When Tony finally brought up the magic, though -- that was when the ice began to break.

“That thing with the ceiling, that was good stuff,” Tony told him.  They walked at an even pace, Tony’s gesticulating with his hands in front of his while Loki’s rested folded behind his back.  The both of them had synchronized in an even rhythm, walking in no rush to where Tony trusted to be the cave opening.  “And the lighting -- a bit low for my taste, but hey, I’m loving it.  That’s magic?”

“It is,” Loki agreed with a cool lilt, though Tony knew all about smugness and the way it straightened backs and puffed the rounds of cheeks.  His flattery wasn’t failing.

“Never seen anything like it,” Tony went on, rapping on Loki’s upper arm with the backs of his knuckles.  Loki looked down at the hand with playful distaste, though he hummed in satisfaction all the same.  “No one has, really.  They’re gonna love it.”  Loki raised a brow.  “Or hate it and want you dead, who’s to say.”

“This citadel sounds more and more promising.” 

As they talked, the cave grew more familiar, whether it was by way of familiar stalagmite or recognizable, broad openings.  More comfortable, Tony turned to walk backwards so he could look straight at the giant, pleased that his dedicatedly stoic disapproval turned upward into what seemed like amusement. 

His expressions were disarmingly human.  Tony couldn’t look away.  The way he raised his brow, the way his lips quirked, the way his eyes shone when he talked back and insulted Tony’s swordsmanship -- it was fascinating.

The walk took a little over an hour or so. 

It was an especially huge relief when the light of the moon came flooding in as they rounded a corner.

“And, the door,” he said casually as he went straight for it, presenting it to Loki as if it were a gift bestowed unto them by God himself, walking backwards again with a big, stupid grin.  When he expected to pass right through the mouth of the cave, however, his back hit a hard stone wall.  He glanced over his shoulder, saw nothing but cold rock, then looked back around to find that Loki was no longer with him.  He cursed to himself.

“Nobody’s here for a long, long time.”

He heard Loki roughly ten paces ahead, barefoot and soft against the damp, icy cave floor.  By the time he made it to where the sound came from, though, there were nothing but frozen, glowing stalagmites.  After a time, there was nothing.  Tony had made a terrible mistake.


End file.
